The production, transmission and use of digital multimedia content by producers, consumers and other users requires the use of powered electronic programmable components, including computers, personal digital assistants (PDA's), flash memory music players, gaming machines, etc., each of which in turn requires the use of electrical energy. Considered cumulatively, the use of powered electronic components in accessing, providing, receiving or manipulating digital media requires significant amounts of energy. Depending on the source of the consumed energy, such usage may also increase greenhouse gas emissions, which are generally believed to cause negative environmental impacts such as causing changes in world atmospheric temperatures (“global climate change”). Public and private initiatives are underway to identify ways to reduce the use of energy by electronic powered devices and components.
Green computing has been defined as the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently, and includes efforts to obtain maximized energy efficiency from computer resources being used. Typically, technological systems or computing products that incorporate green computing principles take into account economic viability, social responsibility and environmental impact. Environmental impact generally refers to the impact on the earth's resources from a given activity, and calculating a given impact includes the consideration of many factors, illustratively including the use of recycled materials, power used during the transport and package of items, overall power use, power used by computers which in turn used to operate a product distribution system, recyclability of products, presence of heavy metals in product, and carbon footprints, which are sometimes defined as a measure of the impact of a given activity on the environment in terms of an amount of green house gases produced as measured in units of carbon dioxide, though it may also contemplate the production of other impact emissions such as methane and hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs).